In spite of their insisting that Mariko had simply been playing both sides to her middle, Maximilian had refused to believe it, for to believe that would sully the purity that the Goddess Mariko had so embodied.
The Japanese Matriarchies were difficult to understand, their absolute adherence to female autonomy an oddity in the male-dominated galaxy. The Matriarch ruled her daughters. She had absolute say over those daughters, down to the man or woman they took to mate, the s*x of the child they bore, where they lived, and what occupation they pursued.
The ancient Japanese culture had been already abstruse to the uninitiated, but the increasing dominance of the Matriarchies had transformed their cultural practices even further from understanding.
When approached with the foreign Emperor'
